Story 2
by xpOplAmAgiCaLpOnyx
Summary: Gabi has a strict philosophy when moving to a new school.Don't get to close to anyone. Don't make friends. And most importantly, Don't Get Attached.What will happen when Gabi moves to a new school with new secrets?Will someone convince her to let them in?
1. Moving In

Chapter 1- Moving In

_30 more minutes. Just 30 more minutes and it will be over. _Gabriella thought as she tried to maintain the last bit of sanity she had left in her brain. Unfortunately, her sixteen year old mind couldn't handle this for much longer.

Not only has she been stuck in a car for four hours, moving for the hundredth time in her lifetime, but she was sitting next to a baby who had been crying for _two whole hours! _You would think that the baby's voice would be gone by now, but no. It was still as strong as ever.

Of course the crying baby didn't stop her mom from taking a business call or her sister from killing her eardrums listening to her music.

"Gabriella can you please calm down the baby, I'm on the phone!" Gabriella's mother nagged

"What does it look like I'm doing!" Gabriella snapped

"Excuse me? Don't sass me!"

"Yeah yeah sorry" Gabriella brushed off her mother's answer, trying to persuade the baby to take her pacifier.

"Come on baby girl! What's wrong?" Gabriella asked the baby, Ariela. She had tried feeding, burping, and changing the child but nothing seemed to do the trick!

"This is probably illegal, but you know what? I'm desperate!" Gabi said to herself as she took Ariela out of her car seat."Shh ,Ariela it's okay." she comforted the child, gently rocking and bouncing her. The crying continued.

"Aww, come on Ri Ri! You gotta stop sometime." Gabriella whined. She looked up to see if she could get any help, but both her mother and sister were oblivious.

"Are you hungry baby?" she tried asking the baby ,even though she had already tried to feed her three times. When she put the bottle into the baby's mouth she started to drink the formula. Gabriella's body sagged in relief. Then the baby spit it out and cried some more.

"Are you kidding me?"Gabriella groaned.

_This better work_ she thought as she laid the baby down on her arm so that her head was supported by her hand and started to pat her back. She could remember her mom patting her back when she was a little girl to help her fall asleep.

Amazingly, Ariela started to calm down after a while. By the time they were ten minutes from their new home she was sound asleep.

For the rest of the car ride to the house Gabi sat looking out the window, enjoying the silence. God knew it wouldn't last for long. Around twenty-five minutes later they pulled into their new two-story house's driveway.

"Now I want to get one thing straight before we get out of this car. You two are not going to fight over who gets what room. There is no point. If things go as planned we won't even be here that long." Gabriella's mom, Maria, informed them, "The master bedroom is mine, the one farthest away from it is the baby's. I don't want to be woken up by its crying..."

"Her name is Ariela, not it or the baby!" Gabriella inserted angrily

" Fine, I don't want to be woken up by _Ariela's_ crying. Happy?" Maria asked

"Very" Gabi answered flatly

"Okay, the room next to _Ariela's_ is the new mommy's" she said looking pointedly at Gabriella , " And the other is Catalina's" she finished.

They all got out of the car and went inside, exploring the new house. Gabriella found her and Ariela's rooms easily. They were both on the right side of the staircase when you went upstairs. The bathroom was conveniently right across the hall from Gabi's room. The other half of the upstairs was a mirror image of theirs, except Catalina's bathroom was smaller due to the master bathroom taking up most of the space.

Gabriella carried Ariela into her empty room in her car seat, set her on the floor, and took her out.

"Welcome to your new home Ri Ri. Enjoy it while you can. We won't be here for long."

Ariela's screaming woke Gabriella up in the middle of the night. _Morning_ Gabriella corrected herself after she looked at her clock ,reading 3 am.

_Feeding time. Oh the joy. You know if teenagers knew this would happen they wouldn't even look at each other._

She tiredly rolled out of bed and walked over to the bassinet to pick up the wailing infant.

"Shh , shh, Mommy's here" Gabriella soothed as she lifted the baby out of the bassinet. She carefully walked through the darkened hallway downstairs to the kitchen to get a bottle. Ariela's cries become whimpers while Gabriella whispered nonsense to her as she warmed the bottle.

"There you go baby girl" Gabriella said as she eased the bottle into the baby's mouth.

As she fed Ariela Gabriella thought back on how her life has been since childhood. For what seems like her whole life Gabi has always been constantly moving. She has never had any real friends before because as soon as she started a friendship with someone they would move. After this happening a few times Gabriella came to the conclusion that it was better to just stay away from everyone and isolate herself, that way no one got hurt.

One time, just one time, did she ever dare to let down her guard. Gabriella ended up staying at this one school for an unusually long time. Well, long enough for Gabi to make friends at least. This one boy had convinced her that maybe she would be there to stay. Then what happened? She got hurt.

"Well that's over anyway right Ri Ri?" Gabriella asked the eating infant. The baby gurgled in response. "Right."

After feeding and burping Ariela, Gabriella went upstairs to put her back to bed.

"Now we got to go night-night. Mommy has to go back to school tomorrow." Gabriella cooed as she set her back down in her bassinet. Why her mom decided to move in the day before school started she didn't know. You would think that you would move them in on a day where they would have at least a day of resting before going back to work, but no, not them. Well, apparently the baby didn't care that her mom had to go to school tomorrow because as soon as she was set down Ariela started to cry.

"Shh, it's okay baby. You're fine" Gabi soothed, rocking the baby in her bassinet. Desperate to get some sleep, Gabriella started to sing. She vaguely remembered hearing this song, but she really didn't care what it was at this moment .

Amazingly, the combination of the rocking and Gabriella's familiar voice soothed Ariela to sleep. _Hmm. I'll have to remember this for next time_ Gabriella thought as she slid back into bed, and immediately fell asleep.


	2. First Day of School Part 1

Chapter 2- The First Day of School Part 1

Gabriella groaned as she woke up to the sun shining in through the window. It seemed like forever since she hadn't woken up completely exhausted.

"Stupid school" Gabi muttered while she checked on Ariela in her bassinet. She was still asleep. Good. That meant she had time for a quick shower.

The warm water relaxed Gabriella's aching muscles when she stepped into the steaming shower. Gabi was not looking forward to today at all. She has moved many times to many different places, and if there was one thing that she had noticed it was this. First days of school are always the worst. It seems as if they never change no matter where you are. There are always the same people, same situations. It is so annoying!

The whispers. Finding all your classes. Having to tell the whole class about yourself. You also had the usual in every school... Freaky weird teachers. Snobby classmates. Evil teachers. The geek. At one school these would be fine, but when repeated over and over, it gets old. Fast. And Gabriella could guarantee that they would happen again.

Gabriella was snapped out of her thoughts to Ariela crying in her bassinet. She quickly put on her robe and went to calm the baby down. After Ariela stopped crying Gabi hurried and got ready for school.

Gabi could hear the sound of her mother's voice drifting upstairs while she was walking downstairs.

"Uh oh get ready for one of grandmas speeches Ri Ri." Gabriella warned the gurgling infant

"Well ,well, well! If it isn't Miss Mommy herself!" Gabriella's mother greeted "Me and Catalina here, were just going over the plan."

"What plan?" Gabi asked as she warmed up the bottle

"The plan on what to say if anyone asks questions. You know how teachers are with us new kids. They always make us stand up and talk in front of the class about our families, our hobbies..." Catalina trailed off

"Where we're from, why we moved. Yeah I got you now. So what's the story?" Gabriella asked

" Okay Ariela is your sister and we moved because of my job, because that is partly true. Um, since I'm always gone on business trips Gabriella is the one who mostly takes care of her. That is why you are always seen with her. Isn't it brilliant!" their mother exclaimed

"Yes, almost as if it was written by a true professor, but what about dad?" Gabriella asked " You know someone's going to ask about him."

"I don't know! Make something up!" Maria snapped angrily before snatching a banana and storming out of the room.

"Touchy touchy" Catalina commented sitting down on a barstool by the island.

"Haha totally" Gabi agreed, feeding Ariela her bottle. The baby ate it hungrily as if she were being starved. The thought made Gabriella laugh. After finishing the bottle and burping the baby Gabriella set her into her car seat and made herself some cereal.

"So we're driving my car to school until your car comes right?" Catalina asked

"Yep"

"What about the baby?" she asked

"We're dropping _Ariela _off at her daycare on the way" Gabi answered stressing Ariela's name. "Which reminds me, can you watch her while I get the directions to the school and day care?"

"Sure" Catalina said through a mouthful of cereal

"Thanks" Gabi hurried upstairs to get the stuff they needed, dodging all of the unpacked boxes that seemed to be everywhere. After getting everything ready for both school and day care the girls grabbed their backpacks, and with Ariela in tow, left for the first day of school.

* * *

"And the Montez sister's have arrived" Catalina announced as she parked the car in East High's parking lot. "You ready to do this sis?"

Instead of an answer all she got was silence. She looked over and saw Gabriella looking at her anxiously

"What's the matter sissy?" Catalina asked using her childhood nickname for Gabriella.

"I want to go back." Gabriella stated. Like any other first time mom, she was worried sick about leaving Ariela for long periods of time. Actually, since she hadn't actually left her with anyone else _at all _yet, she was extremely anxious to leave her alone with someone else. Catalina practically had to force her to leave the day care.

"Oh I so knew this was going to happen! Look Gabs, Ariella is going to be just fine. Those people make their living taking care of kids. I'm sure they know what they're doing."

"But you don't know that!" Gabriella insisted, "Plus there were a lot of kids there! They could have forgotten about her! You know how little she is!"

"Yes I do, but I also know how l_oud _she is. Trust me Gabriella, there is no way that she will be forgotten. Now come on, I want to find my first period class before it's halfway over!" Catalina joked as she got out of the car

Gabriella tried to disregard her fears about leaving Ariela, but she just couldn't. It was all she could think about! Of course she expected she was going to feel something like this since it was her first time to leave Ariela, but she hoped she would forget about her fears after a while. Hoped.

Walking up the front steps to this massive school, the first day jitters started. Gabriella started to second guess everything that she did._ Do I have all of my school supplies? I need this backpack right? Are we going to the right place? Are we even at the right school?!?!_

Even though Gabi knew that most of these questions were really stupid, she couldn't help but think them. And she goes through this every time she moves. Every. Stinkin. Time.

But as always, she kept her head up high on her way to the main office. The moment they walked into the office Catalina, being her normal social freak self, walked right up to the secretary and said, "Hello ma'am, excuse me, but my name is Catalina Montez, and this is my sister Gabriella. We were enrolled last week. Can you please inform us of where we should go to receive our schedules? It would be a great help."

"Why yes sweetie. You will need to go across the hall to the guidance office, and tell them who you are." The secretary directed , impressed with her politeness.

"Thank you so much" Catalina answered with a sugar coated sweetness only she could pull off without sounding fake.

"It scares me how well you do that." Gabi informed her as they followed the secretary's directions

"What can I say? It's a gift." All of their lives, Catalina has been insanely good at lying. This combined with the fact that she is our Maria's favorite hands-down has caused everything to magically be Gabi's fault. Catalina breaks a bowl. Gabi's fault. Curtain gets pulled down. Gabi's fault. One time when Gabriella made her mad she ran into a wall to give herself a bruise and said Gabriella hit her! Evil much? Needless to say, she tries to stay on Catalina's good side.

Because of Catalina's charm they had their schedules in no time. Soon they were introduced their classmates who would show them where to find their homeroom. Gabriella's "guide" was a short African-American girl who looked like she couldn't stop smiling. Meanwhile, Catalina's guide gave off this snotty I'm-better-than-you -can-even-hope-to-be kind of vibe. Catalina gave Gabi a miserable look as she was taken to her homeroom.

_Haha sucks for you!_

Gabi wondered if she spoke, or thought, too soon as she and her guide headed towards her new homeroom. The last guide she had gotten expected her to know where everything was after one day. Gabriella may have been on the Scholastic Decathlon team, but to find her way around a campus with 1,600 students alone after one day? Um, no.

"I feel really sorry for you. Ms. Darbus in your first year at a new school? Whew that sucks!" Taylor sympathized

"Um, excuse me?" Gabi asked confused

"For homeroom. We have Ms. Darbus. Oh, I'm so sorry! I forgot to introduce myself! My names Taylor!"

_Dang. Enthusiastic much?_

"Oh...hi. My names Gabriella. Well, you probably already knew that." she added as an afterthought

_Good job Gabi. You'll probably offend her with your complete unsociableness. Well now that I think about it..._

"Haha it's ok. But still, Ms. Darbus's class is going to be real tough. Well not tough, but crazy. Yeah, very crazy."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see. We're here!" Taylor said excitably as she opened a door.

When Gabi stepped through the door her body was enveloped with sound. The whole classroom was buzzing with laughter and chatter. Color seem to come every direction on the room. Posters of various plays in all different genres covered the walls. A makeshift stage ,with squashy armchairs in the back corners, was set up at the front of the classroom. Rugs of many different vibrant colors were set all around the front desk. Comfy looking chairs sat in the back of the classroom facing each other, probably used for reciting lines judging that the teacher taught drama here at East high.

A woman, most likely Ms. Darbus, in flowy clothes got up from her place behind the desk at the front of the room when she saw Gabriella, and came towards her saying dreamily, "Welcome, welcome. You must be the new student I heard about. How are you today?"

Gabriella answered with the expected "Oh I'm fine" while giving the teacher a quick look-over. Just by looking at her Gabriella could tell that she was quite, um, eccentric. Her clothes were made of a very busy pattern, and she was wearing many scarves of different colors. The woman also seemed as if she were a traveling jewelry store! She had to have at least one ring on every finger along with bracelets piled on her arms. even with all of the scarves you could still see many long necklaces hanging from her neck. Her graying blonde hair was piled on top of her head.

"Taylor will you please show Gabriella where she is to be seated." Ms. Darbus requested after handing Gabriella her schedule.

"Yes ma'am"

Obediently, Taylor motioned for Gabriella to follow her to the back of the room next to a girl who was engrossed in her book. When she saw Gabriella and Taylor coming towards her she smiled and took her book down slightly. Taylor was about to speak when the warning bell rang. She hurried to sit two seats in front of Gabriella. Gabi noted that there was an empty seat in front of her before noticing that the book girl was watching her.

_Please don't talk to me. Please don't talk to me. Please don't talk..._

"Hello"

_Dang it._

"How are you?"

_Tired. Worried sick. About to jump up and kill you for talking to me._

"I'm doing good."

"Oh, that's good." she said, and then turned back to her book.

_Doesn't talk much... I like her!_

Ms. Darbus clapped to get the classes attention as the announcements started. They basically consisted of club announcements and the pledge of allegiance. When they were finished the teacher stood up and started addressing the class.

_Oh God, please no_ Gabriella prayed

"Ok class, now, as you may have noticed, we have a new student here today. Gabriella will you please stand and tell us about yourself and where you came from?" she asked nodding her head in encouragement at Gabriella's nervous look.

_Ok Gabi, now you can do this. Just remember the story._

"Um... hi...my name is Gabriella Montez, and I recently moved here from Birmingham, Alabama. My family moves a lot because of my mom's job so.." Gabriella's little speech was interrupted by the door opening, and possibly the hottest guy in the world walking through it. He had shaggy light brown hair with the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. He looked as if he came out of an Abercrombie and Fitch magazine.

"Mr. Bolton that is your third tardy. That gives you yet another detention after school helping set up the stage. I don't want to give you another understood?" Ms. Darbus lectured him in front of the whole class.

"Yes ma'am. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." The hot guy answered as he turned to walk down the aisle and glanced at Gabi quickly before sitting down on the empty seat in front of her.

"Anyways, as you were saying Gabriella..."

"Oh yes, um... yeah ,so it was no surprise when we found out we were moving again. I also have two sisters. One is a senior here, and the other is 1 month old. So...yeah that's me." Gabriella concluded sitting back down. Looking down at her schedule, Gabriella wondered what electives they managed to put her in. She was happy to find that there was room for her in Medical Professions! Usually they hand-picked the students at the beginning of the year. She nearly laughed when she saw that they put her in Parenting and Child Dynamics. Like she didn't learn enough at home. P.E., so typical.

Suddenly she heard a lot of scrapes and rustles as everyone started to get their stuff together. Taylor magically popped up next to her saying, "Get your stuff together, we're about to leave."

Just then the bell rang and everyone rushed to get out of the room. Gabriella craned her neck to get a last look at the hottie who came in late. "Come on I want to introduce you to everyone." Taylor hurried her As she was led out of the room Gabi went over her loverly checklist. _Ok let's see; Freaky weird teacher-Check! _Taylor practically dragged her over to a group of people that she recognized from her homeroom. There was, of course, the book girl who sat next to her in home room, a dark-skinned boy with a fro, and a petite girl with glasses and brown hair.

"Come on" Taylor encouraged as she walked towards the intimidating group that seemed to grow as she got nearer. Two other boys had already joined the boy with the fro looking frustrated. Gabriella could only hear parts of the conversation like, "He won't" and "got him upset".

Unfazed, Taylor walked right up and announced "Hey guys, you know Gabriella right?" A chorus of yeah's and what's up's were echoed around the group.

Everyone then proceeded to introduce themselves. Chad, the guy with the fro, immediately high fived her like they were best friends. Zeke and Jason settled with just smiling and nodding, which, truthfully, was the way Gabi preferred. All of the girls started comparing schedules with her immediately after introducing themselves. She found out that book girl's name was Enid, and that she had the next period with both her and Taylor. The girl with the glasses, Kelsi, had History with her. They all started to walk away in all different directions after the warning bell rang.

The math classroom was buzzing with excitement when Gabriella walked in. She went ahead of Taylor and talked to the teacher about what she would have to do to catch up in the class. When Gabi turned around to go to her assigned seat she saw that the hottie was in this class also. Confused as to why this made her so happy, Gabriella hurried to her seat. The rest of the class was basically Gabriella trying not to fall asleep from boredom. She sighed in relief when the bell rang for class to end.

Looking at her schedule, she saw that her next period was Medical Professions. Finally a class that she enjoyed! Gabi loved learning about the human body and all that medical stuff. It was one of the easiest classes that she took at her previous school because she paid such close attention to what the teacher said, she just hoped that it would be the same at this school.

Taylor hurried and directed her to the classroom so she could get to her next class. After assuring Gabi that she would be there after class to take her to her next class she left. Gabriella hurried to talk to the teacher before the bell rang.

Gabriella cleared her throat to get the young woman's attention before speaking "Hello ma'am, I'm the new student Gabriella Montez." she introduced herself

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot you were coming. Let's see, I already checked and it seems that we are near where your other class was so with a little extra work you should be caught up in no time. Do you have internet at your house hun?" the teacher asked

"Um, no ma'am. It hasn't been connected yet, but it will be soon" she promised

"Ok, well when it is you need to do research on the development of children from birth to seven years of age, got it?"

"Yes ma'am"

"Okay, well then you may take a seat anywhere that's free." the teacher said with a smile

"Thank you, um do you mind if I go to the bathroom real quick?"

"Oh no, go ahead. It's the door to the left over there by the entrance."

"Ok, thank you." Gabi thanked politely

When Gabriella opened the door she saw that the bathroom was already full of girls. One in particular that was fixing her make-up in the mirror caught her attention. She was wearing a gold sequined shirt with a cropped jean jacket over it, and high heels that made Gabi's feet hurt just by looking at them. When the girl caught Gabriella looking at her she stared right back and asked, "Didn't your mom teach you that it's rude to stare?"

"Oh yeah, sorry." Gabi apologized

"Yeah, you should be." the girl answered rudely. She then snapped her purse shut and strutted out of the room with her little groupies following closely after.

"What! Did she just? No." Gabi said to herself

_Um, let's see...snobby classmate, CHECK!!!_

Gabriella hurried and went to the bathroom so she could get a seat far away from the mean chick. When Gabriella came out of the bathroom she saw the girl turn around and whisper to her friends. Feeling extremely annoyed, she started on her quest for an empty seat.

"Sharpay, will you please come up here and take roll for me. I have run an errand." Mrs. Clark asked the girl

"Of course Mrs. Clark!" Sharpay answered with a smile only teachers believe to be real. She continued to call roll after the teacher left. Gabriella looked around for an open seat, but only found one past Sharpay's table. She looked up to Sharpay to see a creepy little smile on her face. With a shudder, Gabriella started walking to her seat. When Gabi walked around one of Sharpay's friends chairs that was sticking out a little the girl stuck out her foot and tripped Gabriella. Losing her footing, Gabi started wobbling and waving around her arms so she wouldn't fall. After she had regained her balance she looked over at the girl and gave her the meanest glare she could muster. With her luck it probably just looked like she was squinting to get a better look at her face or something. When Gabi looked up at Sharpay and saw that she was all smiles and had to suppress the urgewalk over and slap the mess out of her.

_Sheep. I go to school with a bunch of sheep, and Sharpay is the shepherd. But not in the Jesus way. In the freaky I want to control your life until my dog grows thumbs and we can rule the world together kind of way._

Sharpay finished roll and went back to her throne in the center of the room. When she sat back down Sharpay turned around and gave Gabriella the most degrading look she had ever seen. Then, she turned around and whispered something to her flock of sheep that made them giggle behind their stupid manicured fingers.

_My favorite class has officially been demoted to the worst class of the day_

Mrs. Clark then arrived and started talking to the class. Of course Gabs had to stand and make her little speech about herself. All through her talk Sharpay was making comments to her friends. After it was over the class basically proceeded to be the same as any other. Boring.

Finally, Taylor came in to relieve Gabriella of the aching pain of her boredom. She had to stop reading books on child development or she would start sleeping in class. They made small talk as they made their way to Gabriella's Chemistry class.

"Now I'm going to go ahead and warn you, Mrs. Hall can be a little mean at times, but if you're nice to her you should be fine." Taylor advised

Gabriella chanced a glance at her. She looked a little peaky.

"You're lying"

"Oh yeah!" she exclaimed with a huge breath "Just...don't talk to her when it isn't necessary. Oh look we're here."

Taylor stopped suddenly next to a door. It was eerily silent on the other side of the door compared to the buzz of millions of conversations in the hallway.

"Well, I'll be seeing you." With that, Taylor turned on her heel and just walked away.

"Taylor wait!" Gabriella called after her "I'm scared!" she whisper yelled down the hallway

Not stopping, Taylor turned around, gave Gabs a sympathetic look, then turned back around and kept walking. Gathering as much courage as she could muster, Gabriella opened the door and crossed the threshold into possibly the bleakest class she had ever seen.

* * *

_TADAAA!!! Haha jk, but I am really happy that I finally finished the chapter!_

_I had to split the first day of school into two parts because it was so long. I promise the story gets better, I just really wanted to go ahead and introduce each of her classes. I'm sorry if it was really choppy if you get what I mean by that. Anyways I already have the second part written so be looking for that :)_

_Review please !!!_


	3. First Day of School Part 2

_Previously in Chapter 2:_

_Not stopping, Taylor turned around, gave Gabs a sympathetic look, then turned back around and kept walking. Gathering as much courage as she could muster, Gabriella opened the door and crossed the threshold into possibly the bleakest class she had ever seen. _

Chapter 3-The First Day of School Part 2

Almost everyone in the class was either reading a book or staring into oblivion in front of them. Only a few brave fellows were actually talking to each other. The room looked the same as any other science room she had been in. Plain. Any posters on the walls were either of the periodic table or a graph about atoms. Not exactly the most exciting thing on the planet, yet for some reason it fascinated Gabriella. The fact that everything ran a certain way, and that there was order and a purpose for everything amazed her.

Gabriella was surprised to see a young looking teacher sitting at the desk. After everything Taylor had told her she had been half-expecting a strict old lady with her gray hair pulled back in a tight bun. She carefully made her way towards the woman to introduce herself.

"Hello, are you Mrs. Hall?"

"Yes, I am." the woman answered looking her up and down as if she was a bug on the bottom of her shoe.

"Hi, I'm the new student Gabriella ,and I..."

"Drop it" Mrs. Hall interrupted her abruptly

"Drop what?"

" The sweet new girl facade, it makes me sick. If you were wondering where to sit, you can sit over there by pretty boy, he looks a bit lonely to me. Maybe your sweetness will rub off on him." the teacher said dismissing her with a wave of her hand.

_Ok well, evil teacher...check!_

With a jolt Gabriella realized that Mrs. Hall was talking about the hot guy from her homeroom. She looked back at the teacher with a nervous look on her face.

"What, he's not going to bite you!" Mrs. Hall said exasperatedly" Hey you! Yeah I'm talking to you Troy, don't look to surprised. Make room for the new girl, she's your new lab partner." she called over all the other kids heads. He just nodded on response.

_Oh my gosh! Who would do that? Is it possible to be any more embarrassed?_

Troy looked up and, seeing Gabriella, scooted his chair over to give her more room when she sat down.

"Hey." she greeted when she sat down. No answer. She looked over curiously to see why he was so quiet. Being the brilliant person she was she located the problem almost immediately. Well, that and the fact that his earphones were sticking out quite obviously from his ears ,even though the cords were expertly hidden in his hoodie. With a sigh, she poked him in the side and nodded towards Mrs. Hall ,who was in the process of calling roll.

Gabriella paid so much attention to the lesson that the period went by super fast. The rest of the day was interesting. Gabriella had 4th period with Taylor, Troy, and the fro, Chad, in spent most worrying about Ariela, so needless to say, she had learnt nothing except that Taylor was a geek just like her, which means..._the geek, check! Checklist completed!_

Then there was history, the best class of the day since the only person that Gabriella knew in that class was Taylor, plus the teacher was hilarious. Whenever Mr. Henderson lost his temper with a student he would throw a shoe at them, which was awesome. Well, unless you're the one getting a shoe thrown at you, then it's not awesome, it's embarrassing. Anyways, after history Gabriella had P.E. with basically everyone she had met so far. That means that everyone gets to see her attempt to play sports, which is horrible. Like epic fail horrible. _Shudder._

And then there's Parenting. Sigh. Gabriella wished every period was like Parenting. It is basically one of those let's sit here and learn for about fifteen minutes and then chill for the rest of class classes. So, of course, it was a very fun class.

After the bell rang Gabriella hurried to her locker, avoiding as much human contact as she could along the way. Apparently she sucks at avoiding things because when she was just down the hall from her locker she heard Taylor calling her from behind. Deciding to just ignore her, Gabriella continued to walk to her locker a little faster than before.

"Whew, I finally caught up to you! You walk really fast girl, what are you doing, avoiding me?"

"No, who would think such a thing?"Gabriella answered finally reaching her destination.

Taylor didn't catch the sarcasm and kept on talking "Well, me and the girls were wondering if you wanted to hang out after school, and we could show you around town. You know get to know each other better."

Gabriella couldn't help but thinking back to the one time she took someone up on that offer. Deciding that it would be risking too much to go she answered "I'm sorry but I can't. We're still unpacking and things haven't really settled down much."

"Oh, okay. I understand. Umm, how about later? After you've unpacked and stuff I mean."

"Maybe. I'll see you tomorrow okay?" Gabriella said, already walking towards the doors. Catalina appeared next to her before she could get very far, stopping Gabriella's escape.

"Hey Gabi, how did your first day go?" she asked sarcastically

"Oh it went wonderfully! How about yours?" Gabriella answered back. She was trying to inch her way to the door without Taylor noticing. No progress was coming of it.

"Eh, same old, same old." Catalina answered, oblivious to her sister's suffering

"Are you Gabriella's sister?" Taylor asked scaring the mess out of Catalina who hadn't even noticed her standing there

"Um, yeah. Why?"

"Just wondering." Taylor replied nonchalantly and started a conversation with Catalina. Chad and Enid popped up, looking very interested in the conversation that shouldn't even be existing. If Gabriella had her way she would be halfway to the daycare already. After such a long day all that she wanted was to be home alone with her daughter and to relax the rest of the day. Even though she knew that that would probably be impossible, Gabriella still wanted to pick up Ariela ASAP. She was anxious to find out how things had went at the daycare.

Gabriella was so absorbed in her thoughts that she lost track of the conversation her sister was having with Taylor and her group.

"So Gabriella mentioned that you have a little sister. I bet your parents were surprised when they found out they were pregnant after such a long time" Taylor joked

"Actually our dad left when we were little" Catalina answered without thinking. By the time she realized what she had said the damage was already done.

"But how did your mom get preggers if your dad was gone?" Chad asked stupidly. Taylor looked at him with a horrorstruck expression while Catalina opened and closed her mouth ,looking very much like a fish, trying to think of an explanation. Taylor turned and started to apologize when Gabriella bluntly answered, "She had a one night stand."

Chad's mouth made a big O and Taylor's face turned bright red. Catalina glared at Gabriella with a face that said _What the mess do you think you are doing!!! _Enid just read her book calmly beside them.

"Come on Chad. We need to study for that big test tomorrow remember." Taylor said guiding Chad down the hallway toward the doors with Enid trailing behind reading her book, which had to be darn good if she was that unaware of her surroundings.

"But we don't have a test tomorrow." Chad obliviously replied as they left through the front doors.

"What the heck was that!" Catalina exclaimed after they were a safe distance away

"What? She said make something up. " Gabriella answered innocently, walking to car to pick up her daughter.

"Were baaack." Gabriella said in a sing-song voice as they pulled back into their garage. It turns out that all of her worries about Ariela at school had been useless. After Gabriella practically ran into the day care building the workers had told her that Ariela had been an angel all day (_Well duh! She came from Mwa!!!)_ ,and had actually slept most of the day. Also, seeing as she was the smallest baby at the day care center ,the workers had all practically fought over her too.

"Hello, anyone home?" Gabriella yelled as she walked into the house carting Ariela in her car seat. Receiving no answer, Gabi mumbled "No one. What a surprise. Hey Catalina I'm heading upstairs. Yell if you need anything."

When she got to her room she set Ariela's car seat down on her bed and got her out before looking around the room. It was littered with boxes everywhere. She still hadn't found all of her belongings, but Gabriella was certain that most of them were here. Her bed and dresser were both assembled and sitting where she had chosen the day before, but her desk was sitting in pieces in the corner.

"Great, so I still have to put that together. Hmmm, so much work to do, but wherever do I start Ri Ri?" Gabriella asked the gurgling baby. Ariela looked at Gabriella and then leaned her head in the direction of the boxes containing her clothes.

"You are so right baby girl! Now I'm just gonna lay you down for a minute. Yeah, just for a bit." Gabriella cooed. She placed Ariela in her bassinet and placed a baby mirror that she found in a box from their old attic in with her to keep her entertained. With a heavy sigh, she sat down, opened the boxes containing her and Ariela's clothes, and started to put them away. Gabriella started to list everything that needed to be done in the house in her head. Her mom had already told her and Catalina that she had a business trip this week so they would have to organize the house. Seeing as Catalina would do absolutely nothing it was all left to Gabriella.

With a jolt, Gabriella remembered that she still had to buy furniture for the baby. Her mother had refused to pay for anything of Ariela's except for the bare necessities (formula, diapers, wipes, ect.). Gabi had to work throughout her pregnancy just to buy Ariela's clothes and bassinet, and they were all from thrift stores and garage sales. She had found a box of baby toys that her mother had thankfully not thrown out also. Gabi looked over at Ariela in her bassinet, waving her chubby fists toward her reflection with big eyes, and tried to guess how much longer it would be before she had to transfer her to the nursery. _Eh, I still have a while._

After putting away all of the clothes Gabi attempted to organize what parts of her room were there. The back door slamming scared Ariela and caused her to start fussing. Frustrated, Gabriella looked at her clock and saw that it was time to feed the baby anyway. Praying that her mom wasn't in the kitchen she went downstairs to get the bottle ready.

_Aww man!_

Maria was standing in front of the refrigerator most likely getting a snack. She turned at the sound of Gabriella coming down the stairs.

"Oh good, you're here!" Gabriella exclaimed in her fake cheery voice "How was your day at work?"

"Pssh, like you really care. What do you want?" her mom asked grumpily

" Well, I do have some papers you need to sign upstairs, but I have a question too." Gabriella answered cheerfully ,seeing that it annoyed her mom even further that way.

"What is it?" Maria asked unhappily as usual. Gabriella's mom was never happy or content. Sometimes Gabriella wondered if she was happy at any moment in her life. It seemed as if she had a permanent negative aura around her at all times.

" When is our internet going to be up?"

"Next Tuesday, why?" Maria asked

"School assignment." Gabriella answered casually getting a bottle out of the refrigerator. This is why she hates talking to her mom, she always made it so... not normal.

When she finished making Ariela's bottle she silently hurried up the stairs away from yet another unwanted conversation with her mother. Maria barely noticed her leave the kitchen.

* * *

_Ok yeah the ending totally sucked, but hey, at least I finished it! :) I promise the next chapter will be longer. Review please!!!_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The sound of teenagers chattering seemed to echo inside her head as Gabriella walked down the hall towards her locker. Out of the entire campus that was one thing that she could remember. Her locker. She had a long way to go.

Gabriella's mood plunged downward at the sight she saw before her eyes. Taylor McKessie was standing in front of her locker looking unnaturally chipper for it to be so early in the morning. Gabriella had tried to get to school earlier than normal so that she could avoid this, and have time to find her homeroom by herself. _Meh! _

"Morning sunshine!" Taylor greeted " I thought that I should lead you around one more time today, and then tomorrow I can stay with you while you try it yourself so you don't get lost!"

Gabriella groaned inside her head. _This girl is going to give me a headache._

"Sounds great"

Taylor guided Gabriella to homeroom chattering uncontrollably. By the time she got to homeroom Gabriella could feel a slight throbbing in her temples. Her second day back at school was not starting well. As usual, people didn't stare as much today, but they still stared. And it was still annoying.

Gabriella immediately laid her head down on the cool desk, hoping that it would help soothe the pain in her head. Ariela had kept her up all night so it had taken every ounce of strength in her body to get up that morning. Right now her brain felt like it was the consistency of mush and her body was aching in complaint. Also, thanks to Taylor's nonstop chattering she had a massive headache as well. Yay.

"You know that desk is probably the most unsanitary thing you could lay your head on right now. I mean I'm just saying." a boys voice said from somewhere above her head

"Go away" she groaned. She could feel the vibrations from his voice echo in her head.

"Hey, I'm just trying to save you from some deadly disease" Gabriella risked a peek up. Troy Bolton was standing beside her desk smiling down at her.

Gabriella had the sudden urge to punch him in the face.

"I don't care just leave me alone. " she groaned and put her head in her hands.

"I just wanted to introduce myself officially. I'm Troy Bolton."

"Yeah I know we sit next to each other in Chemistry."

"Oh yeah. Well, apparently you want to sleep so..." with those last words he turned around and pulled out a book from his backpack.  
_Wow that easy . _Gabriella thought putting her head back down. The announcements started causing everyone to quiet down. The thumping in her head was getting stronger ,and something told her that it wasn't going to go away anytime soon.

After the bell rang Gabriella, Taylor, and Enid started to walk to Math together. While the other two talked Gabi ignored them and tried to get her brain to start functioning. She started with listing things she needed to do in her head. _Pick up Ariela, start researching at the library for Medical Professions, unpack..._

All of a sudden Troy popped up next to her ..._never think "Wow that was easy" again_

"Hey again" he greeted

"Go away again." Gabriella countered extremely annoyed.

"Oh, so I see you still need some sleep." He pointed out ,trying to keep up with her speed walking. For some reason Taylor and Enid had magically disappeared when Troy showed up. Gabriella wanted to find them before she resorted to punching this guy. She really didn't feel like spending a day in I.S.S. because some freakishly nice dude wouldn't leave her alone.

"Yeah just a little." Gabriella answered sarcastically while she tried to get away. She started thinking about how to get to Math. Without Taylor there to guide her the hallways seemed to multiply in number._ Was it this hallway or the next?_

Troy signaled down the hallway as if reading her mind "It's this one."

"Huh?"

"Math, it's down this hall. We're in the same class remember?" he explained to her carefully as if she were a child.

"Right. Yeah." she answered. She had to get her brain working or today was going to be a total disaster. It wouldn't have to get much worse though from the looks of it. Shaking her head, Gabriella hurriedly walked to the room she recognized as her class. Thankfully her seat and Troy's were far enough apart that he couldn't bug her.

Gabriella had already been taught the lesson that they were learning so she tried to activate her brain by working all of the examples before the class. While the teacher taught the lesson and answered questions Gabriella went ahead and did the homework. _Ahh, nothing like some good math problems to wake you up...not._

The fact that her brain was working properly only meant that it could recognize the fact that her head was pounding even more than before. She tried to block out the pain and doodled on a scratch piece of paper with her pointer finger supporting her head. When the teacher finished everyone started to converse among themselves. Gabriella looked up from her doodling to see Troy walking towards her with a big smile on his face. Gabi let her hand fall to the desk with a huff. Did he not get it? She didn't want to talk to him!

Since the person who sat in front of her had gotten up to talk to some of her friends Troy sat in her spot.

"Hello" he greeted turning around to face her

"What do you want?" she asked bluntly

"I just wanted to talk." he replied confused to why she refused to have a civil conversation with him.

"Well I don't, so just go back to your seat over there and talk to whatever other friends you have."

"Are you ever going to talk to me?" he asked

"Nope, and I don't even see why you're talking to me now. You weren't too interested yesterday, what's so different today?"

"Nothing's different with you today. I was just in a bad mood yesterday, that's all. And I told you, I try to introduce myself to all of the new students that I see." He answered earnestly

"Yeah, you didn't tell me that."

"Really? I could have sworn I did. Well I do. So..."

The sound of the bell ringing pierced through Gabriella's head. She had never been so happy to feel pain before in her life.

"Yeah, well as lovely as it's been talking to you, I have to go to Medical Professions now." Gabriella said, already on her way out the door

_Giggle ,giggle ,giggle. Yeah go giggle yourself off a cliff somewhere so I don't have to hear you anymore _Gabriella thought as Sharpay and her minions giggled while looking straight at her _again!_ If they were going to talk about her they could at least do it discreetly.

Gabriella sighed in relief when the classroom door opened and Taylors head popped in. "Come on Gabriella."

_Thank God._ Gabriella did pretty well finding her way to Medical Professions and got to Chemistry just as easily.

"See, the school isn't that big once you get used to it." Taylor reassured her at the door of Mrs. Hall's classroom. Gabriella practically winced in pain at the sight of the table she would have to share with Troy. She was not looking forward to sitting next to him all period long. Sitting down, she got her books out of her bookbag.

Someone cleared their throat next to her. She looked up to see a creepy teenager who looked to be about her age standing next to her table. He was handsome in a dark bad boy kind of way. He had a certain mischievous glint in his eyes. The overall look was attractive to most girls and ,you could tell by the way he carried himself, he knew it. Gabriella wasn't feeling it.

"Hi, I don't think we've been formerly introduced yet. I'm Jake." he said squatting own next to her table. _Oh God, not another one!_

Gabriella chuckled darkly, shaking her head. "Ok look John, I don't .."

" My name's Jake."

"Whatever. I don't know why everyone is deciding to talk to me today, but whatever the reason is, I don't like it. So can you just strut right back on over to your seat and leave me alone? Thank you and bye bye."

A part of Gabriella knew that he totally did not deserve what she just did, but all of these nice people were really getting on her nerves. I mean it's one thing on the first day of school, but on the second? Come on. If someone ignores you for a full day and then wanted to become your best friend you would be annoyed too.

"Umm, what?" Jake shook his head as if he were getting water out of his ears. His face made it pretty clear that he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Apparently he had never been turned down by a girl. _Aww how sad. Cue the fake tears._

Jake started to talk again when someone interrupted him from behind Gabriella. "She said she didn't want to talk to you. Get over it and sit back down." Troy said dropping his bookbag on the floor. There was no way you could miss the authority in his voice. Jake went back to his desk with his tail between his legs.

Troy pulled his chair out with his foot and sat down then turned to Gabi and opened his mouth to speak.

"Uh uh." she interrupted before he could start. At his puzzled face she continued "Just because you saved me from a horrible fate doesn't mean you can talk. My head still hurts like a beast and I cannot take any more of you strangely friendly people trying to talk to me. So just listen to that ipod that I know you have with you and leave me alone." Gabriella instructed him before laying her head down on the desk. It seemed like she was doing that a lot today. Her head practically felt like it was going to explode. The rest of the class was just a blur. She could faintly remember some kids getting in trouble for writing notes, and there being a ten minute speech on respect, but she could honestly care less.

"What the mess..." Gabriella said in a sing-song voice when she and Taylor walked into the gym for P.E.. There was a big row tennis nets dividing the gym into half, with buckets of tennis rackets and balls strewn across the floor. Coach Bolton and a student were just finishing setting up a net on the far end of the gym. When he saw that most of the students were in the gym Coach Bolton walked closer to them and started giving them instructions.

"Ok everyone. Now I want you to dress out and get into pairs. Today we are practicing tennis so when you get out go ahead and grab a racket and ball. I'll give you more instructions when your all ready."

Everyone hurried and went to their locker room to get ready while Taylor and Gabriella lagged behind.

"Um , Gabriella look I would have brought this up earlier, but you didn't seem to really care at the moment and now I just really need to get this out of my system."

Gabriella swallowed the comment that she still didn't care about anything Taylor had to say.

"Ok, well what's on your mind?" Gabriella asked with false concern while she opened her gym locker and started to dress out. Somehow she ended up with a locker right next to Taylor's. Apparently there was no way Gabriella could ever get away from her.

"Well it's about yesterday." Taylor answered

"What are you talki...oh." Gabriella said as it dawned on her what she was talking about. The awkward conversation from yesterday. Great.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. It was really none of my business and Chad, well he's just Chad if you know what I mean."

"Haha yea, well it's fine. Really, don't worry about it." she assured Taylor while she closed her locker, "Now come on, let's go hit some people in the head with tennis balls."

Gabriella walked into Parenting ready to just relax. After a whole day of people trying to talk to her, get to know her, whatever rubbish excuse they used she just wanted to sit back, and enjoy a class of nothingness.

That is, until she saw Troy sitting at her table with his feet propped up on her desk.

"What are you doing here?" Gabriella complained. This guy was seriously trying too hard

"This is my class. What are you doing here?" he asked smiling, already knowing the answer.

Gabriella groaned and sat down in her chair next to him .

"It's my class too." she answered miserably. Troy laughed at the look on her face.

"You know what? I'm not going to bug you this period."

"Really?" Gabriella asked hopefully

"Yes really. You look like you could use a break from the constant onslaught of questions. And besides, I have a feeling we're going to see each other very soon."

When Gabriella got home she put Ariela on a blanket on the living room floor. After she made sure the baby was situated she immediately changed into some comfy clothes to start on the living room. It needed _a lot_ of work. She had to put books on bookshelves, put down rugs, take out all of those little things that you have no idea where the heck they came from, ect.. By the time Gabi came back down the stairs Ariela had just discovered that she could move freely with no obstacles. She was having ton of fun just laying there kicking her legs around her.

"Are you having fun baby girl?" Gabriella cooed at her daughter. Hearing her mother's voice Ariela lifted up her head just enough to look at her mom for a second, squealed , then laid her head down again. Looking around at all of the work to be done, Gabriella started cleaning.

After working for a while Gabriella heard the doorbell ring throughout the house. With a sigh, she got up to answer the door.

"This had better be important" Gabriella muttered while she walked to the door. She opened the door to see Troy standing there with a tray of cookies. Suddenly she felt very self-conscious in her old sweats and messy ponytail.

"How'd you get here?" she asked closing the door a little.

"Well hello to you too. I live a couple streets down." he answered

"No you don't." she said quickly with wide eyes. This made Troy laugh quietly and step closer.

" Yeah I do. My mom heard that there was a new family in the neighborhood and she wanted you to feel welcome, hence the cookies."

_Hence, wow. Big sounding word._

"Okay well ,thanks for the cookies. See you at school." Gabi said quickly, trying to get the tray and close the door as fast as possible.

"Wait, aren't you going to invite me in?" he asked confused, as if she wasn't doing what most people would do.

_Let's see. Stranger pops up with cookies. Option 1: You accept them and invite them in with the possibility that they could be a mass murderer. Bzzzt no. Option 2: Accept cookies and say goodbye and hopefully see them nevermore? Ding ding ding we have a winner!!!_

"Um no, I'm sort of still unpacking and the house is a mess." she said "Oh I don't care, I could help!" he insisted

"Well my mom would kill me if I let someone she doesn't know in." she explained. Why couldn't he just leave?

"Oh ok. I guess I'll see you later then" he said looking truly disappointed as he turned to leave.

"Yeah see ya." she said. She felt a pang of regret as she watched him walk away.

"Hey Troy!" she called out when he was halfway down the walkway to her house.

"Yes" he answered hopefully, turning around to face her. Suddenly she forgot what she was going to say, so instead she just said "Um thanks for the cookies." She closed the front door shut, pushing a terribly familiar feeling down deep inside her. Biting her lip, she leaned against the door. _This can't be happening again._

Gabriella woke up the next morning regretting all the events that had happened leading to the present. For such a smart girl she really didn't have much common sense at times. After last year's events you would think that she would know better than to start letting a stranger in again, but here she was again, repeating history. Yesterday had been way too close. She didn't know why, but her feelings for Troy were starting to mirror the way that she had felt about Ariela's father when they first met. All that those feelings had given her was heartbreak, and there was no way she was going to let that happen again.


	5. If I Run To You

_A/N: Hey you guys! I'm so sorry for taking so long! School has been crazy, plus I swear my family is being attacked by a unknown force. It's been insane! Well anyways, I'm sorry for it being so long. I hope this chapter makes up for everything! Enjoy and review :)_

* * *

Chapter 5

"I need a WHAT!?!" Gabriella exclaimed, not believing her ears. _This cannot be happening_!

"You're gonna need a ride home. Look, I have to make up a test after school, and when I'm finished I'm gonna go hang out with some friends." Catalina informed her.

"How do you need to make up a test? We've only been back to school for two days! And you're hanging out with friends? What friends? How could you have possibly made friends so quickly?" Gabriella asked incredulously

"Okay, first of all, while you are an anti-social freak I am a social butterfly. I can make friends within an hour while it takes you a year." This caused Gabriella roll her eyes. Of course she would find a way to call her a freak, she always did. "Secondly, my second period teacher is a jerk so I skipped." she answered simply

"Ugh, how are we even sisters?" Gabi groaned in frustration as they pulled into East High's parking lot.

"I have no idea."

* * *

Gabriella stared at her history packet, and pretended to work while she tried not to scream. It seemed as if her whole day had been a bunch of accidents stringed together to make one huge horrible day.

First, Gabriella's locker had jammed so she was late to homeroom. She forgot to do yesterday's Math homework, and she had one of those hard teachers who didn't take homework late. Then, Sharpay and her minions just being plain obnoxious had made everything worse. Now here she was, trying to gather up the courage to ask for a ride with Taylor.

_It should not be this hard. Just go up there and ask her you chicken!_ Taylor was just there innocently, doing the history work assigned to them in the desk next to Gabi, minding her own business. Right when she was about to open her mouth the threat of a shoe flying at her caused her to shut her mouth. _I don't want a shoe thrown at me. You won't get a shoe thrown at you. With my luck? Oh yes I will! No you won't. Yes I will! JUST DO IT!_

After wrestling with herself for a couple of minutes she gathered up the courage to ask.

"Hey Taylor?" Gabriella whispered quietly

"Yeah?" Taylor glanced up from her work.

"Um, is there any way that you can take me home today?" She looked up to check for any shoes flying towards her. The coast was clear. Taylor looked up at her with a look that Gabi hated, pity."I'm so sorry, but I can't. I have to work right after school."

Gabriella felt her stomach drop. _Oh crap._ Taylor was the only person that she wouldn't mind giving her a ride home. Now she didn't know what to do. Right when she was beginning to think that it was hopeless a sudden thought hit Gabriella. If Taylor couldn't give her a ride that only left one person. Troy.

Gabriella groaned inwardly, thinking of all of the rude things she had said to him that morning. He had been bugging her on the way to Math and she had snapped at him. Grimacing, she thought back to their conversation in the hallway.

_Flashback_

Gabriella rushed down the hallway to Math, trying to avoid the inevitable. Troy hadn't been able to talk to her that morning because she was late, but there was no way that he would be able to resist talking to her walking alone down a hallway.

"Hey Gabriella" Troy popped up next to her with a big grin on his face. _I knew it! _

Gabriella sighed in frustration. "Dude what's up with you?" She asked bluntly, straight and clear. She did not want history to repeat itself under any circumstances. The only way to keep that from happening was to stay emotionally detached. To keep her guard up. To not get attached to anyone or anything. That's what she kept telling herself as her conscience ate away at her for being so rude.

"What do you mean? I just want to talk" he answered looking needlessly confused, seeing as he should be used to her acting like this by now.

"Well, in case you didn't get the memo, I don't want to talk to you!" Gabriella answered abruptly Maybe it would make him go away. _Why would it? It didn't work the first time. _She attempted to walk away but Troy grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him.

"Yes you do, don't pretend like yesterday didn't happen. You wanted to talk to me and you know it" He couldn't know that, could he? The way he was looking at her made Gabriella feel as if he could read her every thought. A shiver ran down her spine.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I just don't see why you are doing this. Most people would have given up by now." Gabriella answered honestly

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not most people." Gabriella watched hopelessly as Troy walked away, feeling as if she had just thrown her last chance away.

* * *

By seventh period the thought of talking to Troy still made Gabriella nervous. She kept getting a vision of him scoffing in her face and refusing to speak to her in her head. If he did she really couldn't blame him. Why would he do her any kind of favor after how she had treated him? Plus wouldn't she be a hypocrite if she tried to talk to him after she had just yelled him for doing the same thing?

_Come on Gabriella, you can do this. Just open your mouth and speak _Gabriella encouraged herself.

The current setting felt insanely awkward. Troy and Gabriella sat at the same table, but they were sitting as far from each other as possible. The silence between them might as well have been screaming. Their earlier conversation seemed to hang in the air between them, causing them to avoid looking at each other. When Gabi did look at Troy she could only see the hurt and confused look on his face from when she yelled at him. She quickly turned away and moved her hair from behind her ear so that it hung like a curtain between them.

_How did I get myself into this?_ All the sudden Gabriella came up with a brilliant idea. She could just write him a note, that way the worst he could do was not read it or throw it away. She hurriedly got out a sheet of paper from her binder and jotted down a greeting. Folding it in quarters, she pushed it to him.

At first he just looked at. Then he looked at her, then back at the note. She reached over and pushed it closer to him. He reached down and picked it up, gently unfolding it. She was too afraid of his reaction to watch him read it so she started doodling on her notebook.

She was on her third funky looking flower when the note dropped in front of her.

_Hey_

**_Hey, feeling bipolar today?_**

Gabriella chuckled when she read his reply and quickly wrote back.

_Haha, just a little_

_**So whats up?**_

_Umm, well I hate to ask this, but can you give me a ride home?_

Troy squinted at the note for a while before answering

_**Do you promise not to yell at me if I try to talk to you in the car?**_

Gabriella started to laugh as she read what he wrote. Troy looked over at her with a small smile playing across his lips.

_Yes I promise._

**_Good. Then yeah, it would be no problem_**

_We would have to go get my baby sister from daycare. Is that okay?_

**_Well I have basketball practice after school that I can't miss. Would that cause a problem?_**

_When does it end?_

_**Five, is that okay?**_

Gabriella stared at the note and chewed her lip as she thought. The day care was open until 5:30. Thirty minutes would be plenty of time to get there.

_Yeah that's great! So I'll meet you at the gym?_

_**Yeah that'd be great**_

Gabriella leaned back in her chair and relaxed for the first time that day since the car ride to school. Everything was going to be just fine.

* * *

The sound of bouncing basketballs and whistles could be heard through the gym doors. Gabriella walked to the gym reluctantly after as much stalling as possible. Contrary to common belief, not all girls liked to watch random sweaty guys play basketball. After she had taken as much time as possible walking to her locker and packing up she had still had a huge amount of time left over. Gabriella had gratefully retreated to her sanctuary, the library. Unfortunately she hadn't received a library card yet, and one could only look at unavailable books for so long without going crazy.

Gabriella pushed the heavy gym door open to be overpowered by the smell of musky sneakers and sweat. Troy, along with the rest of the team, was running up and down to court doing suicides while Coach Bolton stood on the sidelines, egging them on.

Gabriella walked to the bleachers as quietly as possible and sat down. The last thing she wanted was to bring attention to herself and be questioned by the coach. Her plan must have worked seeing as no one came over to bother her while she watched the team practice.

Even if the coach had seen her she wouldn't have known, seeing as she couldn't take her eyes off of a certain blue-eyed boy. It wasn't just that she was attracted to him, there was more to it than that. It was that she was...drawn to him. Like he held all of the answers that she had been searching for. Ever since the other day at her house she could barely stop thinking about him, which honestly scared the crap out of her. The last time she had felt anything like this not only had she gotten her heart broken, but she had gotten a broken heart plus a baby. She didn't think that she could survive if that happened again.

Before she knew it Coach Bolton was blowing the whistle to dismiss the team.

_Wow that was fast._

Troy ran up to the bleachers near her, and picked up a towel to wipe the sweat off of his neck. He smiled at her as he said, "Just give me a minute and I'll be right back.", and disappeared.

Gabriella was still getting over the butterflies from him smiling at her like that when he popped back up, freshly showered and ready to go. This was going to be an interesting ride.

* * *

Troy and Gabriella barely said a word to each other as they drove to Gabriella's little sister's daycare. Actually Gabriella had barely spoken since Troy had gotten out of practice. True to her word, she didn't yell at him when she tried to talk to him, but she did always give him one word answers. Troy had to admit that he was surprised at how she was acting. After she had written him that note he thought that she had finally wanted to give him a chance, yet here she was, the same as always. He heard her sigh in relief as he pulled up into the daycare's parking lot.

"You can just stay in here. It shouldn't take that long." Gabriella told him as he turned the car off and reached for his seatbelt.

_Wow, her first full sentence since we got in the car._

"Oh okay"

Gabriella quickly got out of the car and walked briskly to the daycare. Within a few minutes she was coming back holding a car seat.

* * *

"Why are you home so late?"

_Wow, no 'Hey, how are you?' or 'How was school?'. Just a 'Why are you home so late? Well aren't you lovable today!_

"Oh my day was great! Thanks for asking!" Gabriella answered her mother sarcastically while setting her stuff down. At her mother's stern look she answered the question. "I had to get a ride home from school, and the boy who took me home had basketball practice."

Maria snorted and turned back to her cup of coffee "Oh so you're a slut now? That only took you three days, at least last time it took you three months."

Gabriella's mouth dropped in disbelief as she set Ariela's car seat down on the counter. She didn't want to admit it but that comment had really stung. _Did she really just say that?_

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I said you're a slut. You know you should look to Catalina more often to see how you are _supposed _to behave. She would never act the way _you _do."

_What! She's more of a slut than me!_

"Ok, first of all, don't compare me to Catalina. That's just not nice. Second of all, I am NOT a slut! And thirdly, _Catalina_ is the one who dumped _me_. She didn't even wait to see if I had a ride! Troy was my last resort!"

"Whatever, if that's what you want to believe." Maria brushed off everything that her daughter said as if it were irrelevant.

She couldn't believe it. Here her sister had abandoned her, and she was being blamed for it, again! She wanted to scream. Scream until all of the glass in the windowpanes shattered to pieces.

All of her pent up emotions from the past years stirred inside her. The pain from each of the times her mom made her feel worthless, the hate she felt when her sister insulted her ,the bitterness she had felt from each move, and the hurt from when Ariela's father rejected her. Every horrible moment from the past was brought back out into the light, and Gabriella wanted nothing more than to throw it all back at her mother and make her suffer. All of the frustrations from that day welled up inside Gabriella, and a pressure in her chest grew until it became nearly unbearable and she blurted out, "What is your problem?"

"Excuse me?"

Gabriella found her mother's questioning gaze annoying. Suddenly she realized that the more annoyed she got the higher her self confidence rose.

"I said, What. Is. Your. Problem." she replied enunciating every word "Why do you always treat me so badly while Catalina can do no wrong? You do know that Catalina is way worse of a person than me right? I mean, what do you think she's doing with her friends right now, playing Monopoly?" Gabriella laughed at the thought. "Oh no, and why does all of my hard work goes unnoticed, and whenever I make a little mistake it becomes the biggest news ever? Has it escaped your notice that I have only made one B in my entire school life? Whenever Catalina makes a frickin C- you act as if she was just nominated for a Nobel Prize while I don't even get a good job! Everything that ever happens is always my fault and I'm sick of it. Now for years I have brushed this off and ignored it, but that's over now."

Gabriella glared at her mother. She wanted answers and she wanted them this instant. Maria just looked at Gabriella with an amused expression. Gabriella couldn't believe her eyes when her mother got to her feet and started to leave.

"Is it because of him?" Gabriella called after her, knowing that it was a low blow, but not really caring. Her mother stopped in her tracks. Catalina and Gabriella had had it drilled into their heads as children to never bring up their father. The only things that they knew about him was that he and Maria had worked together and he had abandoned them when Gabriella and Catalina were both babies. He was forbidden territory that neither of them really wanted to tread. Neither of them had ever really brought him up, until now.

As her mother turned to face her Gabriella realized that mentioning her father was a big mistake. Maria's expression was furious. She walked right up in front of her, enraged.

"You want to know why I don't treat you as well as Catalina, well you know what? I'll tell you." Maria stepped back a few steps "Me and your father met at a company banquet. We dated happily for two years and then he proposed and we got married shortly after. It seemed like everything was going great. Almost perfectly. We had a great relationship, things were going well at work, we were happy, everything was going wonderfully. Then he got a promotion. He started to work late and had to go on more business trips, and soon I was getting lonely. After a couple of weeks of eating dinner alone I came up with a brilliant plan. I thought that maybe I had a baby then I wouldn't be as lonely any more. When I mentioned my brilliant plan to him you know what he did?" Maria rhetorically asked her, really getting into the story now. "He freaked. It took all of my strength to convince him to have a baby, and he eventually agreed under one condition. Only one child, and that was it. I agreed. So then I got pregnant and he was so happy. We had a daughter and she was so beautiful and smart. She was going to be the best child anyone had ever seen. And then you know what happened?"

"You got pregnant with me." Gabriella answered the rhetorical question not quite getting the point of why she was telling this story. This wasn't really aswering her question.

"Exactly. For some reason I never had any morning sickness and I wrote off most of the other side effects of pregnancy because I had just had Catalina. I didn't even suspect I was pregnant until I was far enough along that abortion was not an option. The moment I got fat your father lost it. He said he couldn't handle two children. It was too much. I asked him to at least give it a chance, but after you were born he lost it. Between Catalina demanding our attention, as any 10 month old would, and you being a screaming newborn, " She motioned to Ariela with a disgusted look on her face that made Gabi's blood boil, " he couldn't take it. We had a fight and he was gone the next morning."

"So that's it. I was born. That's the reason for all of this?" Gabriella asked not believing her ears. Being born didn't really seem like a reason to be punished this harshly.

Her lack reaction to the story seemed to make her mother even angrier. "Do you not get it? I don't want you! You're the reason he's gone! " she shouted " If it weren't for you your father would still be here, and we would be the happy family we were meant to be. You ruined _everything_."

"I wish you were never born." Maria sneered. Her last words echoed in Gabriella's head and she stood frozen in place. Ariela's screaming was just a distance noise that barely registered in her brain.

She had no idea how long she stood there, and quite frankly she didn't care. Everything around her seemed to disappear. Everything except her mother's last words.

_I wish you were never born._

* * *

"Why won't you stop crying?" Gabriella whined walking around bouncing Ariela in her arms. She still hadn't stopped crying from the fight, one hour ago. She laid the wailing infant in her bassinet and raked her hands through her hair. Nothing was working! She rocked her, bounced her, sang to her, fed her, changed her. She had had no results unless you count making her scream louder.

"Shut up!" She shouted frustrated, then she felt bad.

"I'm so sorry! Mommy didn't mean that!" she apologized picking her back up. Gabriella had almost gotten her to stop a couple of times, but then she would remember what her mother had said and tense up. She would be so close to forgetting and then it popped back up.

_I wish you were never born._

Coming to a decision, Gabi put Ariela down and went to get their stuff.

* * *

Gabriella had never felt as stupid as she did now, standing in front of Troy Bolton's house with screaming Ariela in her car seat, ready to pour her heart out. Why was she here? She honestly didn't know. All that she knew was that she had to talk to someone before she went crazy from all of the thoughts and memories bouncing around in her head.

Troy jumped in surprise when he heard the doorbell ring. He wracked his brain to remember if his mom told him if anyone was coming over. Coming up with nothing, he looked through the peephole to see who the unexpected visitor was. The sight of a desperate looking teenage girl with a baby in a car seat filled his view. He swung open the door and greeted Gabriella. "Hey Gabriella"

" Hey, can I come in? "

"Um, yeah sure " He answered opening the door further and stepping out of the way. He glanced at the wailing baby in the car seat. What was her name again? Ariela?

"I'm sorry for just barging in like this, but the baby won't stop crying and everything is falling apart, and you just sort of popped in my head when I was thinking of where to go."

"No no it's okay, um what's going on?" he asked while he led her to the living room. She sat the carrier down by the sofa and bent down to get the baby out.

"Me and my mom got into this huge fight and it scared Ariela." She said desperately, motioning with her head to the baby in her arms, "She hasn't stopped crying since. Nothing that I've tried has helped and I don't know what to do." She bounced the baby in her arms and looked at him desperately for help.

Troy summoned all of his memories of babysitting from the past years. Somehow he was the only boy out of all of his cousins his age. He always ended up hanging out with the girls when his family visited them in Missouri, and somehow teenage girl cousins equaled babysitting baby cousins. Don't ask him why ,it's like some unspoken rule. Not that he minded, he actually loved it. He always wanted a big family. He was always teased that he should have been a girl....

"Um it's probably because she can sense that you're in distress. Try calming down and clear your head."

"That's the problem I can't! All I can think about is everything that we said. Here you take her I can't think straight." Gabriella told him, frustrated with herself, and practically threw the baby into his arms. She sank down into an armchair by the window and took deep breaths to try and calm down.

Troy looked away from her and looked at the baby girl in his arms. He hadn't really gotten a good look at her in the car. She looked to be about a couple of months old, and had lots of curly dark brown hair. At least for a tiny baby it was a lot. He walked around the room and gently bounced her, humming a song and shushing her. After a couple of minutes of just walking around she stopped crying and slowly fell asleep to Troy's humming. He gently laid her down and looked over to the girl sitting by the window. She was silently staring out of the window, watching all of the activities going on in the street. Troy could hear a lawn mower faintly, and some kids playing ball in the street. He couldn't help but stare at her beauty. Her long dark curls were thrown into a messy ponytail with tendrils hanging down around her face, and even as tired as she looked she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Slowly, he walked across the room to sit next to her. Everything was still and silent, no one moved. Gabriella's voice shattered the still silence that had surrounded them.

"If you asked me how many times I've been told I don't matter, I couldn't. If you asked me how many times people have told me that I'm just in the way, and that I should leave, it would be impossible. All I've ever heard is that I can't do anything right and that I won't ever be able to amount to anything. My whole life I've been trying to prove them wrong, and so far... they've never cared." she told him quietly

Only when she looked at him did Troy notice the tears streaming down her face.

"What happened?" Troy asked with true concern in his voice.

Gabriella turned back to the window and gave a small chuckle before saying "I guess you could say that my mom and I had ...a little disagreement." she stopped and swiped some of the falling tears off of her face. "Let's just say that it helped, um, confirm a lot of my suspicions. " she took the silence that followed as a sign to continue. "My mom took our argument as a chance to tell me how she _really _felt about me."

By the tone in her voice Troy could tell that whatever her mom thought about her wasn't very good

"What did she say?" Troy asked carefully.

He felt his eyebrows draw together in confusion as she gave another dark chuckle. "She said that she wished I had never been born, and that everything would have been better without me. Actually, according to her, I was a complete accident that was never wanted."

Troy reared back in surprise. What kind of heartless woman could ever say that to her child? His mom had said some things in her anger that had hurt his feelings, but never anything that horrible.

"Isn't that great! Heck, it's not like I never suspected something! Me and Catalina are only 10 months apart. Ten! Even as a little girl I would notice that my sister was treated way better than me. Catalina wanted something, she got it, no questions asked. I wanted something my mom gave me some excuse that didn't even make sense. It always seemed as if everything she did was way better than anything I could ever hope to accomplish. I could never do anything right in my mother's eyes." She wiped at her nose and dipped her head down as if ashamed.

Troy didn't know what to say. He was still in shock from everything Gabriella had just confessed to him. The fact that a mother could even say that to her child, well he could barely believe it. But how could he not when this girl sat before him as broken as she was.

Gabriella's quiet voice pulled Troy out of his thoughts. "I don't know if you've figured it out yet, but Ariela isn't my sister."

That caught his attention. "Hmm?"

"Ariela. She's mine. I had her a month before we moved. Strangely enough, in the midst of me trying to prove myself I somehow proved everything my mom had ever thought about me." she confessed, looking too tired to even notice that she had just let out one of her biggest secrets.

"That's not true." he said quietly, and he meant it with all of his heart.

"What?" Gabriella sat straight up in the chair and turned to look Troy straight in the face for the first time during the whole conversation. She had a look of pure surprise on her face.

"Everything that your mom thought, none of it is true. You do matter and you are the strongest person I know. You have to be to endure everything that you've told me." Troy told her sincerely

"Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me." she thanked him with new tears in her eyes. Something in her expression told Troy that he had just said the exact words that she had needed to hear all day.

* * *

_Review please :):):) _


	6. The Thunderstorm

Troy laid sprawled across the couch watching T.V. one Friday afternoon while rain poured down outside. The beginning of a major lightning storm had already started, and he wanted to enjoy his electricity while he still could. He tried his best to focus on what he was watching, but a certain brown-eyed beauty kept popping up in his head.

Every day it seemed as if Gabriella had been opening up to him more and more. Ever since she had came over to his house to pour her heart out he had become one of the only people she would talk to, she completely ignored everyone else. Of course she didn't treat him like he was her best friend, but he was satisfied with her just having a civil conversation with him.

Not being able to stop thinking about her, he got up and went to the window to look out at the pouring rain. A flashback of Gabriella looking out that very same window with tears streaked down her cheeks, words pouring from a broken heart appeared in his mind. He closed his eyes at the thought and turned away. How could a mother be so cruel?

The storm was getting worse. Troy could hear the rain pounding on the roof of the second story and the thunder was getting closer to his house. He could see flashed of lightning through the window

_Ba-Boom. _All the lights in the house went out.

The lights had been out maybe two seconds when Troy's phone began to ring. He looked at the name on the screen before he quickly flipped the phone open. "Hello?"

"Hey Troy, this is Gabriella." the scared voice on the other end of the phone answered, "Did your lights just go out?"

"Yeah, why? Did yours?" he asked in return. Troy looked out the window suspecting the entire sub-divisions lights had gone out. He was right.

"Yeah, umm, you see..." Gabriella stuttered. Troy heard a thunderclap from close by echo through the phone and Gabriella squeaked.

"OK I'm like super scared of thunderstorms and I'm all alone and scared and my lights went out so its super dark and I'm super scared and I was just wondering if you could come over and keep me company so I wouldn't be as scared." Gabriella rushed out in one breath.

Troy didn't need to be told twice. "It's ok, I'll be right there." So without another word, he hung up, got his coat, and hurried out the door.

Gabriella dropped her cell phone on the couch and curled in the fetal position on the floor. She hated thunderstorms. Hated them. They scared her to death. One time when she was little her mom and sister left the house before a thunderstorm and didn't tell Gabriella. By the time she noticed they were gone the thunderstorm was in full swing. She had somehow convinced herself that they had left her and wouldn't come back. By the time they came home she had nearly had a panic attack.

The ringing of the doorbell echoed throughout the house, promising safety and security. Gabriella jumped to her feet, rushed to the door, and heaved it open. When she saw Troy standing on the other side of the threshold a wave of relief swept over her.

"Thank God you're here." she breathed as she practically threw herself on top of him in a hug.

Troy chuckled and replied, "I said that I would be right here."

She let go of him and took a good look at him. He was dripping wet from head to toe. His hair, turned dark brown from being wet, was plastered to his head. His clear blue eyes sparkled as he watched her intently.

"Come on in before you catch pneumonia." Gabriella cringed at how grandmotherly she sounded while she ushered him into the house. Never having gotten through the doorway to the house before, Troy looked around him in interest as Gabriella led him through the house to the living room. When they got there she hurried over to check on Ariela who was sleeping on the floor on a blanket.

"So I see the storm knocked her out." Troy commented as Gabi crouched down next to the sleeping infant. She cracked a smile that caused Troy's heart to leap in his chest.

"Yeah, isn't it ironic. While thunderstorms scare me to death they make her the mellowest baby in the world." she replied jokingly, crossing her arms against the cold.

Troy's soaked through shirt caused him to involuntarily shiver. Gabriella's maternal instincts kicked in and she grabbed him a blanket off of the couch.

"Here, hopefully this can help you stay warm until you dry off."

Troy took the offering thankfully, wrapped it around himself and plopped down across from where Gabriella sat to lean against an ottoman, wrapping herself in another blanket off of the couch. Thunder rumbled outside in turmoil. The sound caused Gabriella to stiffen and sit straight up with alarm in her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Troy asked struggling to keep a straight face. It shouldn't be funny, but it really was.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." Gabriella answered nodding her head really quickly as if to prove her point. All it really did was show that she was lying through her teeth.

"Liar" he accused. Gabriella gasped in mock offense.

"That hurt Troy. Truly it did."

"Yeah, right."

Thunder rumbled far away and Gabi shuddered. Troy had to restrain himself from crawling over to her to gather her in his arms to comfort her. Knowing that that was definitely not an option, he came up with another plan to help comfort her.

"Hey, do you want to play a game?" Troy asked excitedly

"What kind of game?" Gabriella asked warily.

" Twenty questions. You know, to help us get to know each other better."

"You already know more than enough about me." she pointed out._ And I really don't want you to know any more_

"Well, you don't know that much about me. Come on it will be fun." he practically begged.

Gabriella groaned and stared at the ground next to her before answering "Fine how do you play?"

"One of us asks us the other a question, but then we have to answer the same question about ourselves."

Gabriella thought about it and decided that it sounded pretty safe. "Fine I'll bite, but I'm not answering anything I don't want to." she warned him

"That is absolutely fine. Do you want the first question or can I ?"

" You can do it."

"Okay, well then, let's start with the basics. What's your full name?"

"Gabriella Adalene Montez. What's yours?"

"Troy Nathaniel Bolton. See that was painless." he teased

"Yeah you're right. Okay, what about your favorite color." she countered back

"Blue"

"Blue? Wow I would have guessed red, Wildcat." she teased. So she hadn't missed his nickname among the school.

"Where did you hear that?" he groaned

"Haha let's just say that you're a pretty popular subject in the girl's locker room. I can't go a day without hearing about how cute you are."

He actually had the sense to blush and duck down his head. _Aww how cute!_

He quickly asked her for her favorite color to get the attention off of himself.

"Yellow. It's such a nice color. Just looking at it makes you happy."

Troy laughed "Right, because your such a ray of sunshine at school."

"Um, hello. How often have you seen people wearing yellow at our school? I rest my case."

Though he seriously doubted that that was the reason why she was depressed looking at school, he dropped it.

"So have you ever had a pet? If so what was your favorite?"

"That's two questions" Gabriella pointed out

"Yeah, but they are relevant with each other."

"Whatever, no I've never had a pet before. Whenever me and Catalina asked for one my mom would say that she would end up taking care of it. Looking back on it that was a pretty stupid excuse since she barely took care of us, but whatever."

"Yeah my mom used to say that too, except, you know , it was true." he answered turning pink. Gabriella smiled at the sheepish look on his face.

"What is something that you absolutely hate?"

"I hate it people who have to be right. You know, like when someone is completely wrong but they think that their right, and when they find out they were wrong they blame it on someone else?"

"Oh my gosh yes! I totally know what you're talking about! One of my teachers was like that and she was horrible! One time when we had an assembly she got the time wrong and ignored us when we tried to correct her. When we went in late she blamed it on the e-mail for not stating it clearly or something stupid like that."

" Yeah, it's so annoying when stuff like that happens. So what do you hate?" he asked curiously

"Failing." she continued when she saw the quizzical look on his face. "At anything really. I hate failing on tests, assignments, and projects of course, but I also hate to fail at other things. Like being a mom for instance. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and this is the number one thing that I don't want to fail at. I want to be a better mother than my mother ever was and to give Ariela one of the best childhoods a kid could ever have. I don't want her to look back on her life and cringe like I do. She should be able to look back and smile at all of the good memories that she will have." Gabi finished her speech with a small smile and leaned back as if it took all of her strength out of her

"Gabriella, I don't think that it is possible to fail as a parent unless you copy your mother's actions or do something worse. From what I have seen you are nowhere close to what you have described your mother as being."

"Haha, thanks but you haven't seen anything yet. Just wait until tonight when I can't get her back to sleep. You will see true motherhood then." she said with a little laugh. Troy started to laugh back when his stomach started to growl which made her burst out in laughter.

"Oh my gosh what's in there, a monster?" Gabi teased him jokingly and giggled when he turned pink. "Haha don't worry Ariela should be waking up soon to eat too."

They both looked down at the little girl sleeping next to Gabriella peacefully. "How old is she?" Troy asked curiously

"She'll be 6 weeks this Sunday. I still can't believe that she's all mine"

" She looks a lot like you" he commented while scooting closer to get a better look

"Yeah, thank God. I was so relieved when they brought her to me and she didn't look like her father. If she had I probably would have broken down." Gabriella confessed

"Do you want to talk about it?" Troy asked knowing that she knew what he was asking about

"Not really. Looking back on our past conversations I don't want to overwhelm you with all of my sob stories."

"You aren't overwhelming me. I'll always be here when you need to talk. Don't feel like you need to hold anything back. However long you need to take I'll be here when you're ready to talk about it." he assured her. Gabriella couldn't help but wonder if it was a trick, but when she saw the sincerity in his eyes she couldn't help but believe him.

"Oh look, she's waking up." Troy said softly. Gabriella tore her eyes away from looking at him and looked next to her, and sure enough, Ariela was just waking, stretching her arms out far behind her. She yawned real big and blinked her eyes sleepily. For a while she just laid there and looked around, but she quickly tired of that and began to cry.

"Oh you poor thing. Well it's about time you woke up. I guess it's feeing time for the princess." Gabriella stated, "I'm sure we have something that will quiet that monster that your hiding in your stomach." she joked with Troy as she started to get up

She leaned down and picked up the baby girl before she led him to kitchen.

"There should be something to eat in those cabinets over there." she called over her shoulder while she reached for a bottle in the refrigerator. Shutting the refrigerator door with her foot she watched as Troy raided her cabinets. He sort of reminded her of a wild animal searching for food in the wilderness. When he heard her giggling he looked up in questioning "What?" he asked

"Nothing. Just look for food and don't mind me."

He squinted his eyes in a _should I ask?_ expression and turned back around to dig around some more. Gabriella shook her head slightly and turned back to her daughter, chuckling when she realized that the baby was staring at Troy. Oblivious to the baby girl's stare, Troy walked over to the counter with his bounty of food gathered in his arms, and started munching away.

Eventually he must have felt her stare and looked over at them. Seeing Ariela's stare he waved at her with a smile. His actions caused Ariela to stop eating and give him a gummy grin. Gabriella couldn't help but smile at their actions. She never knew a guy who wasn't completely afraid of children, and to meet one who was so good with them was comforting.

"Why me?" Gabriella suddenly asked

"Why what?" he countered

" Why did you try so hard to get me to open up? You can't seriously tell me that you do this to every new student." Gabriella looked at Troy

There was a short pause before he answered her "I really don't know" Troy answered honestly "I just had a feeling that I needed to. Like I couldn't rest until I got you to talk."

Gabriella sat there in deep thought for a while. She wasn't used to feeling this way. One half of her felt some sort of connection to Troy and wanted to tell him everything about herself, while her other half was warning her that her feelings were dangerous and that she needed to run far, far away.

Coming to a decision, Gabriella turned to Troy, "Okay, I'm gonna tell you about her father, but you cannot tell anyone about any of this, okay? If you do...I don't know what I'll do but it won't be pretty."

Troy's mouth twisted into a slight smile before swearing himself to secrecy.

"Well I should probably start off by telling why act the way I do. As you know, I move around a lot, and by a lot I mean a lot. Me and my sister have always suspected that our mom is searching for our father because he got transferred somewhere else to get away from us." she started, turning Ariela so she could burp her as she talked.

"Anyways, it was always really hard when I was little because it seemed as though as soon as I made friends and got comfortable ,we would move. Well after a while I just decided why even make friends if I don't get to keep them, so I eventually just stopped being friendly and became a loner. Well that all worked just fine until last year." Gabriella cradled Ariela once more and started to feed her again as she continued.

"Now, our usual time of stay at one school was about five-ish months. Well, for some reason we stayed at this one school for an unusually long amount of time, which is where I met Ariela's father. He treated me a lot like you did, you know bugging me to talk to him. Of course I pushed him away, much like I did with you, but after a while he started to get to me. After we had been there around four months I expected my mom to announce that we were moving again as she always did, but no announcement came. Well, he continued hounding me, saying that maybe my family was going to stay this time, that it would be okay to make friends. So I fell for it and I started to hang out with him and his friends. After about a month we started dating. By February he had me convinced that we were staying for good and started him pressuring me about other things. Before I knew it my period was late and I was pregnant.

I took, like, six pregnancy tests and they all came out positive, so of course I was completely freaking out. I mean I was only sixteen! I couldn't be a mother! So I drove to his house seeking some reassurance. " she laughed that cruel quiet chuckle

"I always thought it was a myth. You know, the boy accusing the girl of sleeping around, them saying it isn't theirs. It isn't, it's the complete truth. He accused me of lying and cheating on him, and broke up with me. I didn't know what to do so I went home and just cried." she paused for a second to wipe away a single tear running down her cheek

"What'd you do after that?"Troy asked hesitantly

"Well, I knew that I had to tell my mom sometime so I went ahead and got that over with. Of course she yelled at me and called me stupid. I was to scared of her to even say anything back.

My mom said that we were long due for a transfer anyway. I could have slapped her across the face when she said that. So we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and ten months later here I am."

Troy just sat there and digested what she had just told him before asking her another question.

"So where's your sister?"

"Out partying. You see we deal with the whole moving thing completely different. I stay away from, people while she tries to make the most out of every place. She makes friends within the first day and knows where all of the clubs are within the week."

"Oh, I see."

"Yeah, it kind of sucks. It would be nice to have had someone to stick with through all the moving and junk, and we were close when we were younger, but for the past couple of years now we've just been growing apart more and more."

"Well hey, at least you have me now" Troy inserted with a smile

"Yeah, I have you now, and I can't even begin to tell you how much that means to me" she answered, for once feeling like maybe, just maybe, she would be okay.

_I am so sorry for not updating sooner! I've just been really busy and school is kicking my butt :P_

_If you review I will be super happy, and maybe I'll update sooner :)_


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